352 



PURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN 



ELLIS B. USHER 
Editor of "The La Crosse Chronicle' 



[ From Proceedings of The State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1898] 



MADISON 

State Historical Society of Wisconsin 

1899 







PRESENTlvD liY 



p. 

1 V '■: 



PURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN.' 



BY ELLIS B. USHER. 



In 1876 the late George William Curtis began an address be- 
fore the New England Society of New York by recalling the re- 
mark, attributed by Tzaak Walton to Dr. Botelier, " that doubt- 
less God might have made a better berry than the strawberry, 
but doubtless he never did, " with the application that " doubt- 
less there might have been a better place to be born in than 
New England, but doubtless no such place exists." 

In the same happy vein he said: 

" The Mayflower, sir, brought seed, not a harvest. In a cen- 
tury and a half the religious restrictions of the Puritans had 
grown into absolute religious liberty, and in two centuries it 
had burst beyond the limits of New England, and John Carver 
of the Mayflower had ripened into Abraham Lincoln of the 
Illinois prairie. " 

This is the historical epitome of the settlement of the West. 
The fact, also alluded to by Mr. Curtis, that every American is a 
"Yankee" to the European, is the wide testimonial and ac- 
knowledgment of the pregnant Puritan influence upon our na- 
tional character. 

The tendency of emigration to follow latitude in the westward 
march of empire has been noticed and commented upon, as ap- 
plying quite as well to emigrants of American birth as to those 
who come here from the old world. Perhaps there is no more 
marked illustration of this natural tendency than the westward 
movement of the Puritan stock. 

The Northern Yankee from Maine, New Hampshire and Ver- 
mont has followed the pine trees from New York to Puget 

'Address deliveied before the State Historical Convention, at Madison, 
February 22, 1899. 



Il8 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Sound. The Connecticut and Massachusetts Yankees followed 
the Connecticut grant, scattering through Northern Pennsyl- 
vania and Southern New York to some extent, but making their 
main lodgment with General Cleveland and his successors, in 
the "Western Reserve" of Ohio. This emigration extended to 
Iowa, and was to some extent diverted below its normal line by 
the anti-slavery troubles of Kansas. 

Ill these general statements I think there is enough of truth 
to furnish suggestions for the lover of investigation. It is not the 
purpose of this paper to go into their mi-rits. But the influence 
of this emigration is so apparent that I am tempted to deal 
with its manifestations in a State where it has hitherto at- 
tracted little attention — the State of Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin, two years after its admission to the Union, in 
1850, contained but 305,391 peopb. In 1860 it had grown 
to 755,881. This inci'ease was largely due to foreign immigra- 
tion, and of the 91,000 troops sent to the field during the war 
for the union, more than fifty per cent would, I think, be 
found to have been foreign born. Foreign blood has dominated 
the population from the beginning of her statehood, and the 
census of 1890 shows that of Wisconsin's 1,686,880 people, 
74.14 jDer cent have one or both parents who were born aliens, 
25.86 per cent ai'e native born with native parents, and more 
than half the voters are still aliens by birth. In this foreign 
blood the Teutonic predominates, the major part of it is German, 
and, as our free institutions are a development from the spirit 
of the old frei-mark of Germany, and the Hanseatic cities, v we 
find that no foreigner makes a more jealous and independent 
free-man than the German immigrant. 

The average New Englander is likely to raise his eyebrows at 
this statement of the strength of our foreign-born element, for 
he is quite often oblivious to the fact that Boston has a bigger 
Irish population than Dublin, and that Massachusetts, accord- 
ing to the census of 1890, had 29.35 per cent of foreigners 
while Wisconsin had but 30.75 per cent. The dilference is 
mainly to be found in the " native born " population. The great 
majority of the natives in Wisconsin are of the first and second 
generations in descent from foreign immigrants. Not to ex- 



PURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN. II9 

ceed 15,000 such natives could trace an ancestry in this country, 
reachino- to or back of the revolutionary period, without ad- 
mixture of foreign blood. 

This is the fact that is most astonishing in this examination, 
and it is quite remarkable, in this aspect of the growth of the 
State, to find the great influence that the little leaven of Puritan 
blood has exerted from the very beginning. 

Thinking that this testimony to the strength and endurance 
of the most American of American influences may be of use and 
value, as well as of interest, I have been tempted into writing 
this paper, more with the hope that the subject may prove 
inviting to some more capable hand, than with the expectation 
that I can here do it justice. 

There were two constitutional conventions held in Wisconsin 
Territory. The fii'st, whose constitution was rejected, held in 

1846, contained 134 delegates. Of those delegates twenty-nine 
were known to be New England men, and ten others were of 
New England parentage, and of the forty-two natives of New 
York, who were then and have ever since been numerically 
strong and dominant, there were many names that suggest. 
Puritan origin. In the second constitutional convention held in 

1847, there were sixty-nine delegates; twenty-four of these were 
from New England and five were known to be of New England 
parentage. Of the thirty-two men who were members of these 
conventions, who held positions of prominence, fourteen were of 
New England birth or stock. Brief mention of them will be of 
interest. 

Louis Powell Harvey, a member of the convention of 1847, 
was born in East Haddam, Conn. His family early joined the 
movement to the Western Reserve, where Louis got part of a 
college education at the Western Reserve College, at Hudson. 
In 1841 he located in what is now Kenosha, Wisconsin, and 
opened a school; then edited a Whig paper, and was postmaster 
of the place under President Tyler. Afterwards he lived in 
Clinton, then settled in Waterloo, whence he served two terms 
in the state senate, one term as secretary of state, was a regent 
of the state university and, in 1861, was elected governor. 
He had served only about four months as governor when he was 



I20 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

drowned by accidentally falling from a steamboat deck into the 
Tennessee river at Savannah. He had gone South to look after 
the welfare of the Wisconsin troops. His untimely end inter- 
rupted a most useful and promising career. 

Harrison Reed, of Littlefield, Mass., one of the early editors 
of the State, was governor of Florida five years, 186S-73, and 
held minor public positions. 

The most distinguished career was that of Alexander W. Ran- 
dall, a native of New York, but the son of Phineas Randall, of 
Massachusetts. He was twenty-seven, in 1846, when he was 
elected to the constitutional convention. He distinguished him- 
self there by introducing a resolution requiring the question of 
colored suffrage to be separately submitted to vote of the peo- 
ple. The resolution was adopted after an exciting debate, by a 
vote of fifty-three to forty-six. Mr. Randall served part of a 
term as circuit judge. He was governor of the State four years, 
1858 to 1862, and was most efficient in raising troops early in 
the war. In 1862 he was appointed minister to Rome. Resign- 
ing in 1863 he sought a military appointment, but was induced 
by the president to accept the position of assistant postmaster 
general, which he filled until 1865, wlien he was made post- 
master general. 

Exjierience Estabrook, a native of New Hampshire, was at- 
torney general of the State. 

Wm. M. Denis, of Rhode Island, was State bank comptroller. 

Edward V. Whiton, of Revolutionary stock, born in Lee, 
Massachusetts, served several terms in the territorial legisla- 
ture and was a member of the judiciary committee of the first 
convention. He was elected a circuit judge immediately after the 
adoption of the constitution; the circuit judges sitting together 
en banc then constituted the supreme court, over which he for a 
season presided. When the separate organization of the supreme 
court was made, in 1852, he was elected chief justice, which 
position he filled with great ability and dignity until his death 
in 1859. 

George Gale, a native of Vermont, held minor positions and 
served nine years as circuit judge. He helped organize Trem- 
pealeau county and founded the village of Galesville, and Gale 



rURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN. 121 

College, for which he left an endowment of ,^10,000. He wrote 
a book on the "Upper Mississippi" that is already one of the 
rare and sought for books of Americana. 

J. Allen Barber, of Vermont, served one term in the territo- 
rial legislature and five since the State organized. In 1863 he 
was speaker. He served two terms in the State senate, and two 
terms as representative in congress. 

John H. Tweedy, a native of Connecticut, was a delegate in 
■congress. 

Frederick S. Lovell, of Vermont, .was a colonel of volunteers. 

The natives of New York who were of New England ancestry 
held positions as follows : 

Charles H. Larrabee was a congressman, circuit judge, and 
■colonel of volunteers. 

A. Hyatt Smith and G-eorge B. Smith were attorneys general. 

Eleazer Root was the State's first superintendent of public in- 
struction. He was of Connecticut ancestry. 

To go on with this investigation from the members of the con- 
stitutional convention to the men of prominence in the later 
development of the State, it is apparent that the activity and 
force of this New England element in public affairs has been 
maintained with a record quite disproportionate to the smallness 
of its numbers, as compared with the rest of our population. 

To look over our list of governors, who, including Gov. Edward 
Scofield, number eighteen, one is first struck with the fact that 
the only aliens by birth who have ever held the office were 
Lieut. G-ov. Arthur Mc Arthur, a Scotchman, who served four 
days in 1856, during a contest between rival claimants for the 
office; Edward Salomon, a German, who was not elected to the 
office but succeeded to it from the lieutenant governorship upon 
the death of Governor Harvey, and Gov. William E. Smith, a 
Scotchman, the only foreign-born citizen who ever held the office 
by election. 

The list, in order, with nativity, is as follows: 
Nelson Dewey 1848-1852 Connecticut 

Leonard J. Farwell 1852-1854 New York 

Wm. A. Barstow 1854-1856 Connecticut 

Arthur McArthur 1856-4 days Scotland 



122 



WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



Coles Bashford 
Alex. W. Randall 
Louis P. Harvey 
Edward Salomon 
James T. Lewis 
Lucius Fairchild 
C. C. Washburn 
Wm. R. Taylor 
Harrison Ludington 
Wm. E. Smith 
Jeremiah M. Rusk 
Wm. D. Hoard 
G-eorge W. Peck 
Wm. H. Upham 
Edward Scofield 



April, 



1856-1858 
1858-1862 
1862-3 mos. 
1862-1864 

1864-1866 
1866-1872 
1872-1874 
1874-1876 

1876-1878 
1878-1882 
1882-1889 
1889-1891 
1891-1895 
1895-1897 
1897- 



New York 
New York 
Connecticut- 
Germany 
New York 
Ohio 
Maine 
Connecticut 
New York 
Scotland 
Ohio 

New York 
New York 
Massachusetts 
Pennsylvania 



Beo'inning with Governor Dewey, who was born in the "Nut- 
meg State," five of the eighteen were New England men by 
birth, while Governor Fairchild, who had a distinguished civil 
and military career, was born of Massachusetts parents. He 
was Consul to Liverpool, Minister to Spain, National Com- 
mander of the Grand Army of the Republic, and also of the Loyal 
Legion. 

Governor Rusk's name suggests the Yankee filtered through 
the Western Reserve. 

Randall and Peck are known to have a like origin, and other 
names suggest the same lineage. 

Of all these men, probably the ablest and the most distin- 
guished was Cadwallader Golden Washburn, who was one of a 
remarkable family, three brothers of which simultaneously 
represented three different States in congress for several terms 
during the civil war, and a younger brother has since been 
United States senator. He -settled in Wisconsin in 1842, at 
Mineral Point, where he formed a partnership with Cyrus Wood- 
man, also a native of Maine, that lasted for eleven years, and 
laid the ground- work for large fortunes for both of them. They 
practiced law to some extent, but the development of the coun- 
try drew them into the land and banking business and resulted 



PURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN. I 2^ 

in a lai'o-e ownership of pine in Northern Wisconsin, that later 
grew to great value. Mr. Washburn was elected to congress in 
1854 and this partnership was dissolved, though the two men 
were forever after devoted friends and frequently interested in 
each other's enterprises. Mr. Washburn served five terms in 
congress, and his civil career was supplemented by three years' 
service in the army, most of the time with the rank of major 
general. His business operations after the war were mainly 
devoted to his large flouring industry at Minneapolis, though 
he retained his Wisconsin residence and interest in lumbering 
to the last. He was a man of large abilities, great force and 
perfect rectitude. 

It is a notable fact that in the supreme court the two justices 
who were of foreign birth, both of them jurists of great ability,^ 
James G. Ryan and Samuel Crawford, were natives of Ireland, 
and that notwithstanding our large preponderance of German 
blood, it has made few conspicuous successes in the law. The 
State has never had a justice of the supreme court, nor, until 
recently, a circuit judge of German birth. 

Like the list of governors, the list of justices of the supreme- 
court begins with a New England name, to which I have alreadj'- 
alluded, Chief Justice Whiton. Luther S. Dixon, a native of 
Vermont, was another distinguished chief justice. These and 
Jason Downer, also a Vermonter, are the only New England 
men who have been justices since the separate court was organ- 
ized, until the recent appointment of Justice Dodge; but New 
York, which has furnished ten of the seventeen, has several ta 
her credit who must go to New England for a pedigree. 

The same conditions obtain as to the circuit bench, where 
New York has continued to furnish a large share of the judges,, 
as such names as Doolittle, Larrabee and Wentworth would 
plainly suggest. 

Of the men of New England birth who have occupied the 
circuit bench, Timothy O. Howe, his nephew James H. Howe^ 
and G. W. Washburn, all of Maine; Wyman Spooner, of Mas- 
sachusetts; L. S. Dixon, George Gale, George W. Gate and 
O. B. Wyman, of Vermont, are the principal names. Of these 



•124 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

James H. Howe, who was also a United States district judge, 
Luther S. Dixoii, Wyman Spooner, and G-eorge W. Gate would 
easily lead the list. 

Wisconsin has had, including the present incumbents, eleven 
United States senators whose average of ability and influence 
has been remarkably high. Four of these men, Charles Durkee, 
Mathew Hale Carpenter, Philetus Sawyer and William Freeman 
Vilas, were natives of Vermont; Timothy O. Howe, already al- 
luded to, was from Maine; Mr. Doolittle's ancestry runs back 
to Connecticut; John C. Spooner's father was born in Massa- 
chusetts, though he was himself born in the Western Reserve, 
and John L. Mitchell's mother is a native of Massachusetts. 

Throughout the field of public life the Yankee and his de- 
scendants have held this prestige. I find them among the State 
superintendents of schools, as witness the names of Josiah L. 
Pickard, Edward Searing, Lyman C. Draper, Wm. C. Whitford, 
Jesse B. Thayer and Jolin Q. Emery; while a suggestion of the 
source of our educational inspiration is found in the names of 
the Rev. A. L. Chapin, of Beloit College; Rev. William Hark- 
ness Sampson, of Lawrence University; Amos A. Lawrence, of 
Boston, who endowed the university that bears his name; Ed- 
ward Cooke, of Boston, its first president; Rev. J. W. Walcott, 
president of Ripon College in 1853; Rev. C. Whitford, presi- 
dent of Milton College; Simeon Mills, who, as one of the first 
regents, bought the site and superintended the erection of the 
first building for the State University; John H. Lathrop, first 
chancellor, Henry Barnard, the second chancellor, the Rev. 
John Bascom and the present incumbent, Charles Kendall 
Adams, of its later presidents, and many other men of New 
England origin, have had great influence in this field. 

It is an interesting fact that when the civil war began in 
1861, the roster of every early regiment, and the names on every 
earlj'^ subscription paper, bore testimony to the patriotism of 
the descendants of the Pilgrims, and among the Wisconsin men 
who won distinction in the field they bore a noble part. Of the 
commanders of the famous "Iron Brigade," General Lysander 
■Cutler was a native of Massachusetts, while General Edward S. 



PURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN. 1 25 

Bragg, who has since served in congress and made a national 
reputation in civil life, is the grandson of a man who fought 
under the stern old fellow who said, at Bennington, that he 
would win the fight or leave Molly Stark a widow. General 
Fairchild's ancestry is in Massachusetts, and General John A. 
Kellogg's in Connecticut. This brief allusion to a most distin- 
guished command is typical of the Wisconsin record in that war. 

In special fields, two of Wisconsin's most famous citizens, Ly- 
man C. Draper and Increase A. Lapham, are to be counted 
among the descendants of New England. The former helped to 
form the school system of the State and did a wonderful work in 
making the Wisconsin State Historical Society one of the great- 
est depositories of Americana in this country, a shrine that 
•every historian of the West must visit. The latter, as a geolo- 
gist and student of anthropology, gave an early impulse to the 
study of the natural wonders of the State and left enduring 
monuments to his own patient research. 

From the days of 1767, when John Carver of Connecticut first 
put Yankee foot on Wisconsin soil, the forests have been the 
temptation to many of the new Pilgrims from the East. Eveiy 
township of pine in the State will bear testimony to their vis- 
itations. At Green Bay the lirst lumberman (1827) was Col. 
Ebenezer Childs. 

Daniel Whitney was the first man to invade the pine • forests 
of the Wisconsin river in 1827-8. H. S. Allen, a Maine Yankee, 
was sawing lumber in Dunn county in 1835. And the long line 
of New England names has many who have been known in other 
fields: Philetus Sawyer, C. C. Washbui-n and Daniel Wells, 
Jr., served in congress, while the Cranes and Libbys of Osh- 
kosh: the Shaws, Randalls, Marstons, and Eastons, Eau Claire; 
Hixons. Colmans, Pettibones, Hohvays, Bussells, Withees, La 
Crosse, and dozens of other ^^I'ominent names to be found in 
every lumber district of the State, attest the activity and suc- 
cess of the New Englander in this chosen field of industrial 
•enterprise. 

Among the merchants and manufacturers of Milwaukee, the 
metropolis of the State, T. A, Chapman, of Maine, amassed a 
fortune and led the trade in dry goods. 



126 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

Edward P. Allis, of Massachusetts, led not merely the State,, 
but the Northwest, in the manufacture of steam engines and 
mill and other machinery; while such men as J. H. Mead 
(Vermont), of Sheboygan, banker and manufacturer; Abel Keyes 
(Vermont), lumberman and miner of Menasha: Lucius Blake 
(Vermont), manufacturer, of Racine; Arabut Ludlow (Vermont), 
of Monroe, banker and businessman; Rufus B. Kellogg (Massa- 
chusetts), banker, Oshkosh and Green Bay; Augustus Ledyard 
Smith (Connecticut), Appleton; H. H. West (Connecticut), 
and Levi H. Kellogg, L. A. Wheeler (Vermont), Charles H. 
Larkin (Connecticut), Abner Kirby (Maine), and Franklin J. 
Blair (Massachusetts), prominent Milwaukee merchants, sug- 
gest the general dift'usion of the enterprising Yankee through- 
out all the pioneer mercantile enterprises. 

In another important field of development, that of railroads, 
New England blood has been much in evidence. In the early 
days of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway, Byron 
Kilbourn of Connecticut, and E. D. Hoi ton of New Hampshire, 
were leading spirits. S. S. Merrill, who came to be its general 
manager, was another New Hampshire man, as was his assist- 
ant, H. C. Atkins. Wm. R. Sill one of the early chief engi- 
neers, and his assistant H. I. Bliss, were both from Connecticut. 
H. C. Dodge, one of the later engineers, was from Connecticut, 
and Don J. Whittemore, the present chief engineer, was born in 
Vermont. John Catlin, who was one of the moving spirits, and 
president of the Milwaukee & Mississippi road, the present 
Prairie du Chien division of the C, M. & St. P. road, was a Ver- 
monter. Perry H. Smith, James H. Howe, and other leading 
spirits of the Chicago & Northwestern system, were likewise 
from the East. David M. Kelley, of Massachusetts, built the 
Green Bay road; D. A. Baldwin, H. H. Porter (Maine), John C. 
Spooner and Edwin E. Woodman, a descendant of Edward 
Woodman, of Newbury, Mass., are among the leading names of 
the Omaha system, while the Wisconsin Central was built by 
Gardiner Colby, his son Charles L. , and the Abbots, all Yankees. 

In no field has the influence of New England been more 
potent in forming Wisconsin than in the press. Among the 
pioneer editors are General Rufus King (Massachusetts an- 



PURITAN INFLUENCE IN WISCONSIN. 1 27 

cestry, father of Brig. Gen. Chas. King, soldier and writer), 
General Albert G. Ellis (Massachusetts stock), C. C. Sholes, 
his brother Charles Latham Sholes (Connecticut), Daniel W. 
Ballou (Vermont), Maj. L. H. Drury (Vermont), Sterling P. 
Rounds (Vermont), Henry Leach Devereaux (Massachusetts), 
Chas. S. Benton (Maine), Chas. Seymour (Vermont), Harrison 
Reed (Massachusetts), David Atwood (New Hampshire), George 
H. Paul (Vermont), Levi Alden (Vermont), and a host of 
others, are on this roll. General Ellis started the first Wiscon- 
sin newspaper at Green Bay, in 1822. 

The ministers among the pioneers were many of them of New 
England stock or ancestry. The names of Cutting Marsh, 
Brunson, Irish, Colman, Chapin, Sherwin, Clapp, Goodenough, 
McClellan and Kidder, are a suggestive supplement to those al- 
ready mentioned among the promoters of the schools and col- 
leges. 

There is no need to multiply names or suggest fields for in- 
vestigation. The Yankee was a pioneer in every part of Wis- 
consin. He has linked his name with every important industry, 
except that of brewing, and with every section of the State. 
Though few in numbers, the New England men have been a 
potent factor in shaping this commonwealth, and however the 
foreign blood has or may predominate, theirs is the pattern 
that has been set and must be folio w^ed. 

It has sometimes been a matter of wonder that Wisconsin, 
so overwhelmingly foreign in its population, should be so dis- 
tinctively Am.rican in all its institutions of government, in 
its educational impulse and its progress. I have endeavored to 
solve the question in these inquiries, incomplete and hasty as I 
have been compelled to make them. Wisconsin institutions 
have been dominated by Americans of the Puritan seed from the 
beginning. 

In this exposition of what will to some be a new idea as to 
the dominant influence in the upbuilding of this great common- 
wealth, there has been no intention or desire to belittle the 
character, ability, or influence of any of its other worthy in- 
habitants. It is not less their privilege to enjoy glorification of 
their own nativity, nor less their right to be proud of the fact 



128 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 

that they wei-e nurtured under other than New England skies, 
because the Yankee cheerfully admits his own importance. 

In truth, the principal points in the Yankee's favor seems to 
be his large influence in proportion to numbers, his force, and 
his ubiquity. 



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